First hydrogen locomotive started working in Poland.

  • Wooki@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago
    1. Green hydrogen is being produced at scale.
    2. So what, renewables are infinite
    3. That’s overblown
    4. You think the toxic (deadly) lithium thermal runaways that can’t be stopped are somehow better? No. They are worse and a deadly underground carpark disaster waiting to happen.
    5. Not enough lithium in the world to supply the global suv market let alone compete with other markets and let’s not forget that the rest of the transport market…Lithium batteries are yet again another finite mined resource with the same problem as dinosaur juice.
    6. Rail lines won’t be electrified, they are barely being maintained as is!
    • arc@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago
      1. Not really. There are plans for hydrogen plants. The vast majority is “blue”. Secondly what are the chances that an oil company is going to make green hydrogen?
      2. The renewables aren’t the problem. The cost of capturing energy is the problem. If hydrogen takes 3-4x the energy then that’s 3-4x the land with 3-4x the solar and/or windfarms at 3-4x the expense. Do you not see the problem?
      3. No it isn’t. Scientific studies suggest the impact on the atmosphere might 12x worse than releasing CO2.
      4. Lithium isn’t the only battery material. Nor I daresay even if it were, that the safety risk is anywhere near as bad as driving a train with a hundreds of kgs of hydrogen on board
      5. Lithium isn’t the only battery material. There are numerous battery chemistries in existence. It might even be that some less dense chemistries like sodium ion would be viable.
      6. Which is why I clearly I suggested a progressive approach. Switch from diesel to biodiesel, start building hybrid trains where the motor and tender are almost separate things and where the source of power can be 2 or 3 potential inputs - diesel, electrification, battery. And where rolling stock can use solar to reduce consumption further.
      • Wooki@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago
        1. Sorry to burst your bubble. Australia, Africa, take your pick, both have huge multimillion dollar green hydrogen plants being built. Like the 1GW North Queensland hydrogen project currently in contract.
        2. Again see above
        3. Right… that is bullshit. Plenty of real world studies and events HAVE occurred and the toxic release is not a maybe flip flop study. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-09784-z

        Don’t like papers in nature? This guy is a bit of an asshole but he is not wrong at all and reports on the recent event/s Watch it to the end. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7l4wR1zhbc 4. Sure but none are here and more competitive or suitable for application (like compressed air) the leader is clear and underwhelming. Here we need to understand promises of development realistically don’t occur more often than do. 6. I won’t knock on biodiesel as we need a solution, something but we can’t create religions on one in development “potential” more likely to fail than succeed

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      You think the toxic (deadly) lithium thermal runaways that can’t be stopped are somehow better? No. They are worse and a deadly underground carpark disaster waiting to happen.

      Yup, all those trains waiting to explode in carparks. Nor are we developing better batteries that don’t have these problems. Nope, just leaving things exactly as they are.

      Not enough lithium in the world to supply the global suv market . . .

      Even if lithium was our only battery option, this is just plain wrong. People misunderstand what “reserve” means in mining. It’s not the amount of something that’s available to be mined. It’s the amount that is available profitably under current economic conditions. Both better technology and other shifts in the market mean more reserves “magically” open up.

      Oceanic lithium mining may already been commercially viable, and the amount of lithium we can get from that is basically unlimited. On the lab side, there’s a promising string-based evaporation method, which would substantially reduce costs and environmental footprint–exactly the sort of tech that makes more reserves open up. It still needs to be demonstrated at scale, but the strings involved don’t use any exotic materials or have any difficult production.

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I wish they gave a $ per KG estimate in your link about harvesting with strings. The methods detailed in this Journal article gives estimates of $2-5 per KG which is like a 5 to 12x return at current prices.

        I wonder if you could couple that string method with desalination plants? Take the brine output, extract the lithium with the string method before releasing back into the ocean. Two birds one stone sorta deal. I also wonder if the string method is as technically easy to implement and separate the end products, and it’s just a lot of labor if this will end up economically benefitting countries with extremely low wages. If so, that could be ecologically very bad, especially if it’s possible to do with salt water brine. (As it could incentivize people to pump ocean water inland to make brine pools for harvesting).

      • Wooki@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The fact you couldn’t put the recent derailments and toxic unstoppable fires together shows clear ideological bias.

        “Developing” cool so 5 years? 10 years? For these super safe “in-development batteries”. Neat. More clear ideology borderline fantasy.

        “Reserve” Hahahaha More fantasy. Demand has never been higher but don’t worry. “Reserve” will save us all…

        “Other technology” “Profitability “ hahaha good god how much of a fantasy are you selling.